Last year, during dire economic times for most everyone, the oil industry was able to get more than $4 billion in tax breaks. What is particularly disturbing about this is the fact that on that same year, the biggest five oil companies alone raked in about $76 billion in profits. Not only that, for this quarter Exxon reported a 40% increase in profits compared to last year’s while Chevron reported profits for the quarter that are double of their profits last year. That’s $ 4 billion in tax breaks that could have gone to federal coffers but didn’t.
